Ruby Tandoh’s recipes for shimmery truffles and cookies

Ruby Tandoh’s recipes for shimmery truffles and cookies

If you’re going to the trouble of decorating a cake, go for it or go home, says Ruby. Witness these fun, tongue-in-cheek recipes for kitsch cake truffles and rainbow-coloured chocolate sandwich cookies

For a long time, I took a hard stance against decorations in baking, but I’m starting to reconsider. Precisely the things that used to confound me – the twee stuff, the cutesy detail, the fussiness – are now what most draw me in. I love sprinkles and sparkles, glitter, shimmer and sheen, in every rainbow shade of garishness. I still like to err on the wrong side of good taste: if you’re going to decorate, go full-on glitz or go home. Why would you style your cake subdued in Chanel, when it could be gloriously, exuberantly, flashily Kardashian?

Shimmer cake truffles

Cake truffles might sound a strange concept, but it’s just cake blitzed to buttery crumbs, mixed with melted chocolate and rolled into balls. To finish them off, they’re dipped into (more!) melted chocolate and, in a stroke of total unabashed excess, covered in edible shimmer powder for a metallic sheen. You can make lemon white chocolate truffles or the darker plain chocolate ones: or half and half.

1 Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/gas mark 4. Grease a round 20cm cake tin and line the base with a circle of baking parchment.

2 Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy, then stir in the vanilla extract and lemon zest or cocoa powder depending on which flavour you choose. Add the egg and milk and beat to combine. Measure in the flour and baking powder, stirring everything gently together until you’re left with a smooth batter. Spoon the batter into the prepared cake tin and bake for 20-25 minutes, until the cake is well-risen, golden brown and cooked through to its centre. Leave to cool for a few minutes in its tin before unmoulding and letting it cool completely.

3 Once the cake is at room temperature, blitz it in the food processor until it is reduced to fine crumbs. You can also easily do this by just breaking it up and rubbing it between your fingertips. If your oven runs a little hot, the sides of your cake might be quite dry and browned – if so, just trim these edges off before you crumb the cake.

4 Melt 150g of the chocolate either in the microwave or in a bowl set over a pan of simmering water. Add to the crumbed cake mixture along with the milk. Work everything together using your hands. The mixture needs to be just sticky enough to hold in balls when you squeeze it together. If it’s too dry, add a splash of extra milk; if it’s too sticky, just put it in the fridge for a little while to firm up.

5 Roll the cake mix into 24 small balls and arrange on a tray. Put in the fridge for an hour to chill and firm. Once the cake truffles have chilled, melt the remaining chocolate and dip the truffles in it until coated in a light, even layer. Set on a tray and return to the fridge for the chocolate to firm.

6 Once the chocolate is set, dust the shimmer powder liberally over the truffles, using a makeup brush or small paint brush to apply a light layer. These will keep in the fridge for two days.

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Chocolate hazelnut yoyo cookies

Sandwiched together with smooth chocolate buttercream and rolled in sprinkles, these fun cookies look much like yo-yos. They’re a fun baking experiment to attempt with children, but make sure you’ve got a big tray or a couple of sheets of newspaper on hand to catch any rogue sprinkles and crumbs, to minimise the clean-up operation afterwards.

You can find roasted ground hazelnuts in your supermarket, but if you want to make it yourself, just bake 100g hazelnuts in a 180C/350F/gas mark 4 oven for 8-12 minutes, until golden and fragrant. Leave to cool completely, then blitz in a food processor just until the nuts are reduced to a fine meal. Don’t over-process the hazelnuts, or you’ll end up with an oily paste, halfway to hazelnut butter.

1 Measure the flour, ground hazelnuts, brown sugar, baking powder, vanilla extract and orange zest together into a large bowl. Add the softened butter and egg yolks, and rub everything together between your fingertips until there are no visible chunks of butter left and the mixture is beginning to clump together into a slightly sticky dough. If it’s too dry to hold together, you can add a little milk. Press the dough into a rough disc, wrap in clingfilm and put in the fridge to chill for at least half an hour, or until the dough is firm enough to be rolled out. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 180C/350F/gas mark 4. Line two large baking trays with baking parchment.

2 Dust a work surface with flour and roll the biscuit dough out to a large rectangle – roughly 50x20cm. Cut out 5cm diameter circles using a small pastry cutter and transfer the circles to the prepared baking trays. Reroll and stamp out any excess dough. Bake the biscuits for 13-15 minutes, or until just beginning to turn golden brown at their edges. The biscuits will harden as they cool, so take care not to overcook them.

3 Leave the biscuits to cool on a wire rack. Meanwhile, beat the butter for the filling until smooth, then add the cocoa powder and vanilla extract. Once smooth, add the icing sugar to the mix, a little at a time, until you’re left with a thick chocolate buttercream.

4 You can just spoon the buttercream on to the biscuits, but I find it’s far easier to get an even spread (and a good surface for the sprinkles to adhere to) if you pipe it. Fill a piping bag with the buttercream and cut a 1-2cm hole in the end. Pipe a thick swirl of icing on to half the batch of biscuits, starting at the outside edge of each circle and spiralling in towards the centre. Sandwich with the remaining biscuits, press very gently down to push the icing to the edges, then smooth away any excess with your finger so that the buttercream sits flush with the biscuits.

5 Pour the sprinkles on to a plate or shallow bowl and roll the cookie sandwiches around to stick the sprinkles to the buttercream middle.